Effective Teamwork

What are the key principles for good teamwork in the workplace?

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. ~Andrew Carnegie

1) Effective collaboration between team members is key so they are able to tackle large projects and accomplish them together.

 We should not only use all the brains we have, but all that we can borrow. ~Woodrow Wilson

2) Enabling creativity through building a safe culture of vulnerability by creating a safe space and a culture of belonging where people openly contribute new ideas.
3) Effectively using tension in a team can be a good thing when it challenges us to unlock and deal with it in a collaborative way that enables us to step toward innovation.

4) Effective listening is a key to a collaborative and creative environment for achieving goals.  Many times we listen to respond rather than listen to hear others.  Teams who listen well collectively build on each other’s ideas rather than trying to trump the last one with their better idea.

5) Learning through failure.  Rather than looking at failure slowing down progress or enabling the fear of failures from starting an idea from growing in the first place, leaders that use the power of failure to “fail forward” encourage the creativity to achieve success.

By focusing on building these key skills and more, teams can achieve more resulting on over delivering on their promised outcomes.